Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty released

[Royal-Killer 10]

Well it was released a while ago.

The Terrans, Protoss and Zergs come back again.

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The reviewers have spoken:

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/starcraft2

Anyone have it? how good is it?

Edited July 30, 2010 by Royal-Killer

[Flash Thunder 10]

Of course its GOD LIKE.

I was a long time player of the first one (NOT online) but with friends against the AI which was still pretty difficult.

Im only in bronze in SC2 doesnt look like I will be moving up anytime soon with my 15 wins 32 losses FPDR

Overall SC2

Campaign so far excellent

AI is good and their pathfinding

Online very polished but missing a few nice things like the chat room lobbies, options for custom games are laughable, theres no zerg or protoss campaign because those are coming in the form of an expansion pack probably for another 40 bucks a pop.

Edited July 30, 2010 by Flash Thunder

[mosh 0]

Of course its GOD LIKE.

Yes it is. It is very well put together. I'm a big fan of Starcraft and Warcraft (1, 2, and 3) so this really was a long time coming. Those games were what originally sucked me into computer gaming and were all I played before I found OFP.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

If I start complaining about this game, I will never stop, so I will limit it to one bile-filled rant.

- I'd like to meet the bunch of smacktards who a) made the game look like Warcraft with extra-cartoony acid trippiness and removed all the dark grit of the original, b) removed all the Terran units that were actually cool, c) replaced said Terran units with POS rounded shiny things, and emasculate them with a butter knife.

Other than that, it's decent.

[Flash Thunder 10]

If I start complaining about this game, I will never stop, so I will limit it to one bile-filled rant.

- I'd like to meet the bunch of smacktards who a) made the game look like Warcraft with extra-cartoony acid trippiness and removed all the dark grit of the original, b) removed all the Terran units that were actually cool, c) replaced said Terran units with POS rounded shiny things, and emasculate them with a butter knife.

Other than that, it's decent.

I miss the goliaths in MP they're in campaign but not in MP due to balance reasons, I also miss the lurkers for zerg

Zerg is just plain shite now.

[D00mbuggy 10]

I've played the trial. It's crack cocaine on steroids.

[NoRailgunner 0]

This "register-before-you-install/play" feature sounds like a lazy copyprotection solution combined with some sort of data mining (and selling).

Why should someone register online to install/play the campaign/missions or even edit/make stuff?

Seems that more and more people behave like drug addicted - as long as they get hyped they will buy and do all for it.

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

I've played the trial. It's crack cocaine on steroids.

???

You mean briefly interesting but ultimately fatal?

[echo1 0]

This "register-before-you-install/play" feature sounds like a lazy copyprotection solution combined with some sort of data mining (and selling).

Why should someone register online to install/play the campaign/missions or even edit/make stuff?

Seems that more and more people behave like drug addicted - as long as they get hyped they will buy and do all for it.

That, and lack of LAN.

[Inkompetent 0]

This "register-before-you-install/play" feature sounds like a lazy copyprotection solution combined with some sort of data mining (and selling).

Why should someone register online to install/play the campaign/missions or even edit/make stuff?

Seems that more and more people behave like drug addicted - as long as they get hyped they will buy and do all for it.

Because then they (Activision-Blizzard) have full control of their users! If I understand things right the game is region-locked so a player of the US version can't even play against EU players unless he also owns a EU version of the game, in South Korea you subscribe to Battle.net (or at least to Starcraft 2 access on Battle.net, which is required to play), and there's a lot of other stuff (and bound to be more coming) where they really try their best to make you pay to play, even when already owning the game.

On top of that, by removing LAN and forcing people through Battle.net they can add in-game advertisement and earn even more money since you'll be forced to be exposed to it every time you want to play multiplayer.

Totally agree that it's pure crap how they are doing things, but then again... with Kotick being the CEO of it all, how CAN it be designed to be in the interest of the players instead of 100% being for the shareholders and more $$$?

I'm not overly interested in the game. The campaign would be nice, and playing some multipalyer for lols with buddies, but beacuse Activision is involved it is a no-brainer to not give them my money. Could be the best game in the world and they wouldn't get it. Crappy business ethics isn't worthy of earning money.

[Royal-Killer 10]

Is it true than you need to be connected at battle.net everytime to play, even for single???

Like steam with MW2.

[Clavicula_nox4817 0]

1 campaign is included. The rest will be released later.

Enough said.

[Flash Thunder 10]

okay I already have 30+ hours invested I wasnt in the beta having a fun time in Mutiplayer/campaign and playing against AI.

worth the money and If I find out my personal info was sold im going to be locking and loading a few of my rifles...

[pre-Vet 10]

was waiting for this since 2008! 2 years later I dont know if I will like it, the cartoony RA3 like look kills the starcraft atmosphere.

is it really worth €50,-?

what is the estimated time for the campaign? always bugs me to play a game in 2 days and find out that was the whole campaign... (sc:conviction, MW2..)

too bad game developers assume everybody has fast internet!

[red oct 2]

was waiting for this since 2008! 2 years later I dont know if I will like it, the cartoony RA3 like look kills the starcraft atmosphere.

is it really worth €50,-?

what is the estimated time for the campaign? always bugs me to play a game in 2 days and find out that was the whole campaign... (sc:conviction, MW2..)

too bad game developers assume everybody has fast internet!

the campaign is about the same length as all 3 factions of the first game combined. i think theres about 26 or 27 missions total. and you do get the map editor so you can make your own multi player maps and campaign style single player maps.

[GoOB 0]

I am on the fence with this one... I've been looking forward to SC2 for a long time now, but the oppressive DRM and lack of LAN support is making me less sure of buying the game. It is a sad thing that companies spend money on DRM and other measures of preventing piracy, especially taking into consideration that those who pirated the game as opposed to buying it will soon be playing each other online via private servers. Activisions' ongoing scheme to make customers into subscribers of strange, useless services also makes me wary of this game.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

1. Unit queue is 5 per factory, 10 with a reactor add-on. This is the year 2010.

2. To construct units, you need to click on a factory that is responsible for them. This is the year 2010.

3. Maps are as small as they get. Starcraft had better maps; tripling the maps size is a start, but it'll lose the 'spirit' of Starcraft MP and the Koreans will burn down Blizz HQ.

Red Alert 2 had better graphics and environment interaction than Starcraft 2: WOW edition does.

P.S. The units & animations are more cartoony than C&C: Red Alert 3. You know it's that bad, SC felt like a sci-fi, this one feels like WOW.

Campaign is 26 missions total, 16h on the clock @ hard.

Edited August 1, 2010 by Iroquois Pliskin

[norsu 180]

Is it true than you need to be connected at battle.net everytime to play, even for single???

No. You'll need to activate your Battle.net account by logging in only once in the main menu. After that just log out and play as a guest. You can play at least skirmish and campaign in guest mode, saved games and campaign progress work too. Achievements don't work in guest mode but that's a minor thing.

And X2 about the WoW look. You'd think that as a major studio Blizzard would have different art styles for different franchises but no. Models with cartoonic proportions and textures that look like they were made with water colors seems to be the big trend at the moment. Some units like the carrier looked better as a sprite FPDR.

Edited August 1, 2010 by Norsu

[pre-Vet 10]

1. Unit queue is 5 per factory, 10 with a reactor add-on. This is the year 2010.

2. To construct units, you need to click on a factory that is responsible for them. This is the year 2010.

3. Maps are as small as they get. Starcraft had better maps; tripling the maps size is a start, but it'll lose the 'spirit' of Starcraft MP and the Koreans will burn down Blizz HQ.

Red Alert 2 had better graphics and environment interaction than Starcraft 2: WOW edition does.

P.S. The units & animations are more cartoony than C&C: Red Alert 3. You know it's that bad, SC felt like a sci-fi, this one feels like WOW.

Campaign is 26 missions total, 16h on the clock @ hard.

god, never realized it was this bad!

they only had like ... 12 years make this version? ;)

guess the que has to do with korean compititians too.

too bad they went on the WOW tour with the look, they should realize the WOW public is not the SC public.

the campaign is about the same length as all 3 factions of the first game combined. i think theres about 26 or 27 missions total. and you do get the map editor so you can make your own multi player maps and campaign style single player maps.

editor is nice.

but 1 campaign? maybe good for the story line I guess but I just loved the old SC option to click on the marine, hydralisc or zealot.

guess I'll install broodwar again ;)

[InqWiper 0]

Originally Posted by Iroquois Pliskin

1. Unit queue is 5 per factory, 10 with a reactor add-on. This is the year 2010.

2. To construct units, you need to click on a factory that is responsible for them. This is the year 2010.

3. Maps are as small as they get. Starcraft had better maps; tripling the maps size is a start, but it'll lose the 'spirit' of Starcraft MP and the Koreans will burn down Blizz HQ.

If you need to queue more than 5 units in a building you really suck.

You can actually place buildings in control groups now. You can for example select 4 factories and bind them all to group 8. Then to start spamming vehicles you just press 8 and the shortkey for the vehicle in the factory. The game will then automatically spread the production wisely over all factories so that if you start producing 5 units from 4 factories it will first start one unit in each factory and then the 5th unit will start in the factory which has the least remaining buildtime. You can also set waypoints for the buildings to units so that new units that are built will go and join that unit. The hatchery even has a seperate waypoint for workers and combat units so you dont have to change waypoint when you produce drones/other units.

Such a whine thread this is. The graphics are good IMO, the gameplay is balanced, ladder is working very well. Havent played the campaign yet. The editor seems amazing from what Ive seen in videos. If you want to know what the game is like go check out videos on youtube and dont listen to people who dont even know how to play the game whine away.

Some of the complaints here are valid but not the ones concerning gameplay or game engine.

Video about starcraft editor:

There are more videos on youtube made by the community if you are interrested. This is what convinced me to preorder the game. Like OFP, because of the editor there will probably be no end of this game except when a sequel is released.

[Flash Thunder 10]

1. Unit queue is 5 per factory, 10 with a reactor add-on. This is the year 2010.

Do I need to call the Wambulance?

seriously if you need to queue up more than 5 units at once your crap (its called build more than one or two barracks), I dont even need more than 3 at a time to totally overwhelm my opponent.

Cartoony look, why does it matter, its not like they didnt put gore in the game or anything sick so little kiddies would be able to play, all the units are complete with animations and all their own death states pretty damn nice details.

You have your opinion, but its a pretty shit one, more people will buy this game then any other RTS on the market like it or not, and it doesnt look like Blizzard will stop support anytime soon, the only thing that pisses me off is the 3 game ordeal and no zerg/protoss campaign from the get go.

[norsu 180]

Cartoony look, why does it matter, its not like they didnt put gore in the game or anything sick so little kiddies would be able to play, all the units are complete with animations and all their own death states pretty damn nice details.

It doesn't matter the gameplay and like you said the details are very nice. However I just don't understand why Blizzard has to fill all their games with WoW style art whatever their setting.

Gameplay in SC2 is rock solid and suffers only from lack of basic formations since the AI still likes to cluster into one big blob. This leads to unnecessary macro in my opinion. I'm also eager to see what kind stuff the community will make with the powerful and surprisingly easy to use editor.

Campaign however is a bit messy. While the missions themselves are mostly very good, the story around them feels sometimes like a last minute addition. It's very easy to break the flow of the story if you don't play the missions in specific order. Story in SC1 seemed more solid and each campaign ending had a clear conclusion.

WoL campaign ending doesn't really have any conclusion at all and feels like a cheap cliffhanger.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

It doesn't matter the gameplay and like you said the details are very nice. However I just don't understand why Blizzard has to fill all their games with WoW style art whatever their setting.

+ Moebius strip.

Honestly, the second I saw Raynor I thought "OMFG, it's all the dwarves from WoW teleported into Starcraft." And don't get me started upon whatever that midget in the armoury looks like.

Where are their freakin' necks? Honestly?

...must... stop... complaining...

[Barely-injured 0]

While I was initially concerned about the visuals, simply because the early footage of SC2 and even some of the beta looked easily like a starcraft mod made on the warcraft 3 engine. I have to say that looking at the videos from the released game, it is so much better (and darker if you will) then what was shown before. So maybe it is because I feel it is so much better than the early footage that I am not very concerned of how bad it still compares to the original.

But to be fair, These old school 2D games were always masterful at creating haunting atmospheric visuals. I think I have yet to see a new 3D sequel (literal or spiritual) to an old 2D game that beats it in terms of atmosphere. Its not like the footage from Diablo 3 is better than Diablo 2. Or to use a non Blizzard example: not even Dragon age can beat Baldur's gate 2 in atmosphere. And maybe similar comparisions can be made in the fallout series and jagged alliance, but I cant say since I really haven't played those games that much.

Either that or we all are just a bunch of old nostalgic fools :p

[Cyteless 10]

I'm loving Starcraft 2. I've needed a good RTS for a while.